Broken
by Miles Above My Head
Summary: Mal and Natara's house goes up in flames, but houses can be replaced. They lose something much more valuable, can they ever get through it?
1. Watched It Burn As I Touched Your Face

**Not a one-shotttt. Tell me what you think? This story is based off of my own experience. A year and a few months back, my aunt's house burnt down and I'm really close to her and spent a lot of great times in that house. Her and my uncle survived (she wasn't even home) and their two dogs made it out, but her five or so cats all died. It was really sad and I began planning this story out this morning and just started writing it, so there you go.:)**

**(By the way, that whole story is more in depth and could be made even sadder because it was a LOAD sadder than that, but I figure it's not good to depress you this early in the fanfic...)**

* * *

><p>Flames engulfed the small house and Mal stood, barely restraining himself, tears spilling down his face. He knew he had to hold back, he could lose it just yet. His wife was already being held by a firefighter, who looked annoyed. Mal figured he would be too, if he was being forced to hold a woman who was screaming her lungs out, trying to throw herself right into the flames. Slowly a firefighter emerged from the burning building and Natara stopped shrieking to hear what he said. There was nothing in his arms. He shook his head and now a second firefighter was holding Mal back as he tried to race into the building, already knowing it was too late. Already knowing it was hopeless. Already knowing it would be no use to sacrifice himself as well.<p>

His wife was screaming again, but her screams were punctuated by sobs now. He himself was just barely holding back, sobbing now. Without it registering completely in his mind, Mal knew Ken, Amy, Maria, and several others of their friends had joined them around the black bonfire now. But bonfires are supposed to be happy, not tragic.

He heard them trying to calm Natara down, trying to stop her screams. One of them came over and tried to stop Mal from sobbing. "It's just a house," they said. "Everything can be replaced."

Then the dreaded words came. They didn't know yet, they didn't know why Mal and Natara were in such horrible pain. Mal walked over and held Natara in his arms. She buried her face in his shirt and stopped screaming, as they sat on the sidewalk in the middle of their friends. But whether they stuck together or not, the words still came. There it was, the question. The one they didn't want to think about. The one they wanted to avoid. The one they were trying to pretend wasn't true. It was Amy who asked it, Mal later realized. It was Amy who first realized who was missing.

"Mal…? Natara…? Wh-where is Megan?"

This time it was Mal who broke down. It was Mal who was being comforted by a thousand pair of hands. It was Mal, buried in Natara's hug. But hugging her, it wasn't as comforting as it always had been because he felt her trembling. He felt the tears rolling off of her face, splashing onto the back of his torn and burned jacket.

They all knew, they all understood. Why else would the top detective and FBI profiler be sitting outside on the ground sobbing together?

What could possibly make the bravest pair break down like so?

What could possibly break the resolve of the two toughest partners in the history of the SFPD?

The answer isn't hard. Mr. and Mrs. Fallon's three year old daughter, Megan, was not saved from the fire that took their house and belongings.

And they were broken because a life as special as hers, it could not be replaced.

_Broken down and sobbing now_

_How could we possibly explain how_

_It feels to lose someone you held dear_

_Lose them to something that you did fear_

_The baby girl, her years of three_

_She died that night, her parents did plee_

_Save her please, we need her here_

_They waited till dawn, they stayed quite near_

_She never did emerge from that flaming house_

_The street was in a mourning silent as a mouse_

_Remembering that innocent little daughter that died_

_Her parents stayed up all night, they cried; they cried_

_How do you comfort someone who's lost someone like that?_

_Worse than watching their heart monitor go flat_

_They lost her without so much as a farewell_

_The smoke, it'll haunt them, forever the smell._


	2. Let It Burn While I Cried

**So I wanted to thank you all for your amazing reviews(: This is actually one of my favorite stories I've written so far, so I seriously appreciate it! I'm home sick from school today so I'll be boredly writing allllll day longgg(; Be prepared! It's not even 10am where I am!**

**_On a side note..., TOMORROW'S MY BIRTHDAYYY:D I'm already having a terrible birthday though, because I'm sick, I have gym class tomorrow which sucks, and all of my friends are in Mock Trial and they have a thing tomorrow all day so NONE of them will be in school. Awesome birthday, right? :| Well anyway, wish me luck with that... :p_**

**Enjoyyy(:**

* * *

><p>They sat in the motel room, stunned and silent. How do you even react to losing your baby girl like that? Mal looked over at his wife, who sat on the bed. They had both stopped crying, not able to make any more tears come free.<p>

"Th-the fireman told me," she began hoarsely, "That she probably just inhaled smoke and passed out, dying without any pain."

Mal sighed, now fighting some tears, "The fireman told me that they tell everyone that."

Natara fell silent staring at the ground and then whispered, "What are we supposed to do?"

Mal replied slowly, "…keep on living, I guess."

-The Next Day-

Mal and Natara, hand in hand, walked into the precinct. So what if everyone stared? So what if everyone saw their red, puffy, crying eyes? So what if everyone knew how much pain they were in? They had someone to talk to, and they weren't in the mood to stop for any pity.

"Captain Yeong," Mal stopped her on her way out of her office. "A word?"

Her face sank into the pitying look Mal had learned quickly to despise and she nodded, turning back into the room. "What is it?"

Natara spoke up, after not talking since their conversation the previous night. "We…we would like extended time off."

"Natara," she began softly and Natara also recognized the pity that she loathed. "I can't just put my two best workers on extended leave for who-knows-how-long at the same time. You must know that."

Natara stood up, now raising her voice, glaring, "And you must know, _Captain_, that we just lost our DAUGHTER," her voice raised to just below a scream and the bull pen fell silent outside, listening. "We just lost our DAUGHTER in a fire that took everything we own, and you can't give us two or three damn weeks off?"

Mal took her hand again and tugged her back into her seat. She sat silently sobbing again and he shook his head at Maria, who looked ready to get some help. "Alright!" she sighed annoyed. "Alright! But if anyone gets viciously murdered while you're gone, it's on YOUR conscience!" She volunteered a small, sad smile to the pair. "It's going to be okay. People deal with fires every day around the world. It's going to be fine."

With one more look of pure venom shot at Maria, Natara stood up, turned on her heels, and swiftly marched out of the office victorious as Mal gave an apologetic look and followed. They clearly weren't handling it well.

-Later That Day-

Mal silently stood in the doorway of their motel room's bedroom and watched Natara. She sat on the bed, tears silently falling and landing onto a framed picture of their little daughter of three. Megan …poor Megan.

_The fire alarms were pounding against their eardrums as Mal and Natara bolted out of their bed. Megan's bedroom door! It wouldn't open!_

"_Mommy!" she wailed from inside. "Daddy! It…It's…."_

"_Get in there!" Natara shrieked at her husband._

"_I'm trying, I'm trying!" Mal yelled back, coughing from the smoke. "How did this even…?"_

_He looked to his side, where his wife was no longer standing. She was lying on the floor, passed out from the smoke. He himself was feeling dizzy, but continued to bang helplessly on the bedroom door of their daughter. Megan's cries had stopped. He heard his ears ringing…slowly, slowly, his vision faded to black. The last thing he heard was, "They're here! They're over here! Quick, I think they're…."_

_And then he passed out._

Jerking suddenly back from the past, he looked back over at Natara, who had spotted him. Mal walked over and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"It's my fault. I should've gotten into her room."

"Mal…that's just a stage of grief..blaming yourself," she rubbed his back soothingly.

"Oh yeah? Did you blame yourself yet?"

"Not yet, but we don't know how the fire started. I've been thinking over everything I did that night. I remember I definitely turned everything off… Nothing was cooking. I just…I can't remember…" she sighed.

Mal realized they both still had the faint smell of being around smoke, which brought more tears to his eyes. He realized he wanted nothing more than to murder someone right now, one of the firefighters maybe, for not saving their little girl in time.

"I could kill one of those damn firefighters," he said quietly. "Why can't they just do their jobs?"

"The second stage of grief," Natara whispered, hugging him. "Anger."


	3. Feel You Here Forever

**Hello guys thanks for all the reviews they really made my birthday special! Yeah, it's still my birthday for like... idk 3 more hours or so where I am. :P but who cares, I'M FINALLY FIFTEEN! :D Happy birthday (in case I don't get the chance to tell you tomorrow) to A bit of a nerd. (: I love you so much your reviews always make my day :D I hope you have a super wonderful fantabulous awesome CoDerific birthday!**

__**In other, related news, at my school we decorate each other's lockers for our birthdays and my amazingly artistic friend drew me a Mockingjay and wrote "On your birthday, may the odds be _ever_ in your favor." And only my best Hunger Game friends will understand how that made me scream with excitement. XD So my dear best friend Christine, I love you for being the most amazing person ever and no one could ever replace you. I love everything about you, you're an amazing artist, you know how to make me smile through my tears, you are more like me than anyone I know, we can never stay mad at each other, you love Cause of Death, you are the strongest, bravest, BEST friend I've ever had in my whole life and I just want to say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for being so amazing. (:**

**Anyway, after all that random babble that had absolutely nothing to do with my story but I had to say, enjoy this story that is now officially dedicated to my Aunt Mary, my best friend Christine M. (just for being herselfXD nothing to do with fire whatsoever), and anyone else that's ever had to deal with a fire destroying something they'd loved. Stay strong.**

**And enjoyyy(:**

* * *

><p>It wasn't like he was blaming her – not in the least. It was hard to explain; he just wanted to be alone. It had finally hit him that his daughter – his pride and joy – was gone forever. He'd begun to tell himself that this wasn't possible, but that little voice in the back of his head (that sounded an awful lot like Natara) simply told him this was another stage of grief. Denial, he supposed.<p>

He shut himself in the bedroom for the fifth time that day and walked to the laptop computer. His fingers danced over the keys. _Stages of loss and grief._ Scanning the results quickly, he settled on an article from . He read through the list, locating a step titled Denial and Isolation. Well, that cleared that up nicely.

"Mal!" Natara called from the living room. "I know you want to be alone but I really think it would help if we talked."

He quickly cleared the internet history and closed the browser, knowing she'd check and yelled back, "Isn't it healthy for me to get through all of these elusive 'Stages of Grief'?"

"….well, _yes_, but…"

"And you clearly know that isolation is a stage of grief then."

"Well yeah, but Mal..," she materialized at the door. "You don't have to do this _alone_."

Mal stood up and they embraced. His whisper muffled by her hair, he mumbled, "Nat when am I going to get better and be normal again?"

"Oh Mal, you think _I'm _perfectly okay? We just lost our daughter; we're allowed to be an emotional wreck. Grieving is a personal process that has not a time limit nor an exact way of accomplishing itself. But we will get through this, I swear."

He stared at her for a long moment and before collapsing once again onto the soft motel bed, he stated bluntly, "I want to go back to work tomorrow."

Natara sighed and left him alone to stare up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"Captain Yeong?" she said quietly into her phone. "I need your help."


End file.
